Copyright

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019 Published in this ebook edition in 2019 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk Text copyright © David Walliams 2019 Illustrations copyright © Tony Ross 2019 Cover lettering of author’s name copyright © Quentin Blake 2010 Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019 David Walliams and Tony Ross assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Apart from famous historical figures, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008262174 Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008385651 Version: 2019-11-21

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Thank-yous

Britain: The year is 2120

These are the characters in the story …

Map

Prologue

Part One: The Coming of the Beast

Chapter 1: Dark

Chapter 2: Lionheart

Chapter 3: Faceless Fiends

Chapter 4: A Lost Soul

Chapter 5: Unblinking Stare

Chapter 6: Dead of Night

Chapter 7: The Room With No Door

Chapter 8: Prince of Nothing

Chapter 9: Festering

Chapter 10: Metal Menace

Chapter 11: An Ungodly Hour

Chapter 12: Runaway Pram

Chapter 13: Talking toilet

Chapter 14: Eggy-wegg

Chapter 15: Ruins

Chapter 16: Spying Through a Keyhole

Chapter 17: A Beast of Fire

Part Two: Power over Life and Death

Chapter 18: The Mouth of Hell

Chapter 19: Silent Scream

Chapter 20: Porridge & Port

Chapter 21: The Vault

Chapter 22: The King’s Beasts

Chapter 23: The Impossible

Chapter 24: The Secret Passage

Chapter 25: The Shadows

Part Three: A Tower of Traitors

Chapter 26: Black Water

Chapter 27: Traitors’ Gate

Chapter 28: Sickness of the Mind

Chapter 29: Deception

Chapter 30: The Executioner

Chapter 31: Disaster Strikes

Part Four: Revolution

Chapter 32: Some Kind of Monster

Chapter 33: HMS Sceptre

Chapter 34: A Carpet of Rats

Chapter 35: The Opposite of Vertigo

Chapter 36: BONG!

Chapter 37: Hotty Botty

Chapter 38: Life & Death

Chapter 39: Limb from Limb

Chapter 40: Doomed

Chapter 41: Human Torpedo

Chapter 42: A Trap

Chapter 43: Deadly Weapons

Chapter 44: The Secret

Chapter 45: Storming of the Palace

Chapter 46: The Book of Albion

Chapter 47: Super-being

Part Five: The Final Reckoning

Chapter 48: Fireball

Chapter 49: A Final Farewell

Chapter 50: Light

More from the World of David Walliams

Also by David Walliams

About the Publisher

For my brave friend Henry.

David x

These are the characters in the story…

PRINCE ALFRED is a sickly boy of twelve, who has never known life outside Buckingham Palace.

THE KING was once a great ruler and a kind father. Now he is as lost as his kingdom.

THE QUEEN is an impossibly posh lady, who is much loved by her son. She and Alfred have an unbreakable bond.

THE LORD PROTECTOR is a learned man who began his royal career forty years ago in the palace library. He has risen to become the King’s closest adviser, but yearns for more power.

MITE is a homeless orphan from the outside. She is so called because of her small size. Her parents were killed when she was a toddler, and since then she has had to fend for herself.

NANNY is a lady in her eighties who in her job has looked after two generations of royal children. She cared for the King when he was a boy and is now the nanny to Prince Alfred.

THE OLD QUEEN is an elderly lady who was Queen when her husband was King. Now she is deemed to be a traitor, and is living somewhere in exile, though no one knows where. Except her, of course.

LADY AGATHA and LADY ENID are two of the Old Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. As ladies-in-waiting, they performed various duties for the Old Queen, such as tending to her dresses, carrying bouquets of flowers and typing letters. Now they too live in exile with four other ladies-in-waiting: Lady Beatrix, Lady Virginia, Lady Daphne and Lady Judith.

ENID

AGATHA

BEATRIX

VIRGINIA

DAPHNE

JUDITH

THE ROYAL GUARDS are elite soldiers in gold skull masks and flowing red robes. They are armed with laser guns, and their mission is to protect the palace at all costs.

THE EXECUTIONER is a giant of a man whose face is covered by a black hood. He is in charge of all the torture and executions at the Tower of London.

THE OCTOBUT is an eight-armed robot that is meant to perform the same tasks as a human butler.

THE ALL-SEEING EYE is a flying robot that resembles a giant eye. It is under the control of the Lord Protector, so he can monitor everyone and everything in Buckingham Palace.

he griffin is the King of the Beasts.

It is half eagle (the King of the Birds) and half lion (the King of the Animals). The head and wings are those of an eagle, while the body and back legs are those of a lion.

For centuries, the beast has been thought of as the stuff of legend.

Early civilisations worshipped the griffin – it can be found in stories from both Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece.

In medieval times, this half eagle, half lion became a symbol of godlike power.

The power over life and death.

The power to create or destroy the universe.

Infinite power for all eternity.

The sight of a griffin would inspire terror in the hearts of all men. That is why the beasts were used as symbols through the centuries by kings and queens. Griffins can be seen on coats of arms, flags and shields. The message was simple: kneel or you will suffer a terrible fate at the claws of this beast.

It looks a little like a dinosaur, those terrifying creatures that stalked the Earth millions of years ago. However, unlike dinosaurs, no one has ever found the skeleton of one.

But that doesn’t mean that a griffin never lived.

Or one day might not live again…

It was noon, and the sky was black.

There had been darkness over the kingdom for half a century. For, many years before, the people of the Earth had not taken care of their home.

They had burned down all the forests, reducing every last tree to ash.

They had pumped the rivers, lakes and seas full of waste, killing all the fish.

They had dug deeper and deeper under the ground for oil, until the planet was hollow to its core.

Eventually, the Earth took its revenge.

The ice caps of the Arctic and the Antarctic melted. The floods were so mighty that whole countries became submerged underwater.

Violent earthquakes shook entire cities to the ground. All that was left behind were piles and piles of rubble.

Volcanoes erupted, pumping billions of tonnes of ash into the air. Without the sunlight, the crops withered and died. Nothing could grow.

The kingdom was plunged into an ETERNAL WINTER.

It was the only world Alfred knew. He was already twelve years old, but had never, ever seen sunlight. Often, he dreamed how it must have been to feel the sun on your face, or run through a field of tall grass, or swim in a sunlit sea. But it was just that, a dream.

The boy had seen pictures of the sun in books and marvelled at it. A perfect circle of gold. Now the moon and stars had become invisible too. Alfred would spend hours and hours imagining how the night sky must have looked with a thousand little lights twinkling through the blackness.

He was one of those children who liked nothing more than being alone with his imagination. In truth, he had little choice, having been sickly his whole life. Soon after he was born, he became ill. As a baby, Alfred had not been expected to survive, but survive he did.

Just.

The child was as pale as snow and as thin as dust. He wore thick glasses to aid his poor eyesight. Often Alfred was so weak he had to stay in bed all day. Thank goodness all around his bed were piles and piles of books. Books, books and more books. Books about animals. Books about space. Books about trees. Books about dinosaurs. Books about books.

Books about history were his absolute favourite.

The trouble was that there was a strict curfew in the building where Alfred lived. Night was the most dangerous time. That was when there was most chance of an attack from the outside. Lights had to be out at eight o’clock sharp. By order of the King. Anyone caught with lights on would be severely punished. Punishments were brutal in the kingdom. Those in power had returned to medieval forms of torture.

Despite the strict rules, the boy loved his books so much that he would carry on reading by candlelight under his bedcovers…

The night our story begins, Alfred was doing just that. He was reading a weighty leather-bound book about the kings and queens of Britain through the ages. The first known one was Alfred the Great. He had become ruler an impossibly long time ago, in 871. The boy was named after that first king, but it was hard to believe anybody would ever describe this Alfred as “great”. He felt anything but.

As the boy was devouring the story of the beheading of King Charles I in 1649, a deafening sound rocked the room.

KABOOM!

Alfred dropped his book.

THUD!

And his candle. He very nearly set the covers alight.

WOOF!

Smothering the flames and blowing the candle out…

WHOOSH!

…he pulled off his bedcovers.

WHIP!

A huge explosion outside had illuminated the boy’s bedroom with glowing red, orange and yellow light.

Alfred slid out of bed and using all his strength limped over to his huge bay window. Just those few steps left him painfully out of breath.

“Huh! Huh! Huh!”

He leaned on the window frame to steady himself.

Alfred’s bedroom was high up on the top floor. From here, he could see far across London. A building was ablaze. But not just any building.

St Paul’s Cathedral.

This historic structure, perhaps one of the most famous in the world, had been destroyed.

Its huge white dome cracked as if it were nothing more than an egg. Huge plumes of black smoke billowed high into the air.

Oh no! thought Alfred. No! Not St Paul’s!

He had seen many London landmarks destroyed over the years. Nelson’s Column had been toppled to the ground.

CRUNCH!

The London Eye had plunged into the River Thames.

SPLASH!

The Royal Albert Hall roof had caved in after a bomb had blasted it to pieces.

BOOM!

However, none of these was as sacred as St Paul’s. This was a new low. The cathedral had been built after the Great Fire of London in 1666. The glorious structure had miraculously survived the Blitz, when Nazi bombs rained down on London during World War Two, but now it was burning to the ground.

Alfred’s next thought was, Revolutionaries.

This had all the hallmarks of one of their attacks.

The boy had never met anyone from this top-secret organisation, but the Lord Protector had taught him much about them. From what Alfred had been told, the revolutionaries hated the fact that power had returned to the King. They wanted to overthrow him, and behead him, just like the Roundheads had done to Charles I during the English Civil War.

These revolutionaries stood only for death and destruction. That is why the Lord Protector said they needed to be crushed at all costs.

RAT! TAT! TAT!

There was a burst of machine-gun fire.

“NOOO!”

The distant sound of shouts.

“ARGH!”

Was that a scream?

Alfred shivered. As much as he wanted to look away, he couldn’t. Every day there were attacks all over London, but explosions on this scale were rare. The boy pressed his hand up against the cold, thick glass and looked out at the devastation.

This was the kingdom Alfred would one day inherit.

Alfred was as far from an ordinary twelve-year-old boy as you could imagine. Inside he felt ordinary, but he’d been told time and time again by grown-ups that he was anything but.

Alfred was not just plain old “Alfred”.

He was “Prince Alfred”.

His father was the King.

One day he himself would be crowned King.

King Alfred II, ruler of Britain and all its people.

The strange thing was that he would become king of a kingdom he had never set foot in. Not once had he been outside Buckingham Palace.

The boy’s sad face could often be glimpsed at his bedroom window at the very top of the building. Just above his window, a flag flew on the roof of the palace. For hundreds of years it had been the Union Jack, the red, white and blue flag of the United Kingdom. Now a very different flag flew, one that the Lord Protector himself had instigated. It was a black flag, with a golden griffin at its centre. This was the symbol of the new order of things. Britain now had no government, so no prime minister or politicians representing the people. It also had no police force. Instead, the King’s personal army, the royal guards, enforced the rule of law.

Buckingham Palace had been home to the British royal family for centuries, since the time of George III. From his history books, Alfred had learned that it had become a royal residence way back in 1761.

The palace used to be a sanctuary.

Now it was a fortress.

Members of the royal guard were stationed all along the perimeter wall. The soldiers were instantly recognisable by their long flowing red robes, hoods and horrifying gold skull masks. On their arms they wore black bands, with the golden griffin at the centre, just like on the flag. Despite looking almost medieval, the royal guards were armed with laser guns. Just one zap was enough to blast someone into oblivion. These soldiers guarded those who lived inside Buckingham Palace.

The palace had seen better days. The carpets were worn and the wallpaper was peeling off the walls, but it was still a special place. The prince’s bedroom was furnished only with antiques. He slept on a four-poster bed in silk pyjamas, though the bed creaked and the pyjamas had holes in them.

The palace kitchen was stocked with every dish imaginable, as long as it came out of a tin. There were food stocks to last a hundred years or more.

Alfred was safe inside the palace. Or so he thought.

The boy pressed his face closer to the window as the domed roof of St Paul’s Cathedral caved in. Despite the horror, Alfred couldn’t look away. Then, in an instant, he became distracted. There was a commotion in the corridor. He could hear a struggle and shouts just beyond his bedroom door.

“TAKE YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF ME! HOW DARE YOU! I AM YOUR QUEEN!”

It was his mother’s voice.

As fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast, Alfred limped across his bedroom, and opened the door. The Queen was being held roughly by two members of the royal guard. They were meant to protect the royal family, so why were they dragging her along as if she were a criminal?

These were strange times, but this was the strangest time of all.

“MAMA!” cried Alfred after her.

The Queen was wearing her long lace nightdress and one slipper. Even though she was being manhandled, she was trying to maintain some sense of dignity. This was a lady who prided herself on never having a hair out of place.

Alfred had not seen his mother without her hair perfectly lacquered in a “do” and her face painted with make-up. Right now, her do was unravelling fast. Instead of make-up her face was covered with thick night cream. She looked a sight. Alfred idolised his mother, and it was weird seeing her like this.

“ALFRED!” she shouted over her shoulder, struggling with the soldiers to make them stop.

Because their faces were hidden behind gold skull masks, it was impossible to guess what they were thinking. The royal guards remained silent throughout, which only added to the sense that this was a nightmare.

“Mama! Where are they taking you?” demanded Alfred.

“GET BACK INSIDE YOUR ROOM, ALFRED! AND LOCK THE DOOR!” she shouted back.

“But…!”

“NOW! AND PROMISE ME YOU’LL STAY THERE!”

The boy did not reply.

“Promise!” she pleaded.

“I promise!” he mumbled.

Shocked at what he’d just witnessed, Alfred retreated and slammed his bedroom door shut.

SCHTUM!

He stood dead still, unable to move. It was as if he were underwater. That too made it feel like being in a nightmare.

But this was no nightmare. This was really happening.

As if to prove that, tears welled in the boy’s eyes, then streamed down his face. His mother, who he loved more than anyone, was being dragged away in the night, and he was helpless to stop it. Alfred looked around his bedroom. There were silver-framed photographs of her everywhere.

Here she was reading him a bedtime story.

There she was pushing him on a rocking horse.

Here she was helping him draw a picture.

There she was playing with his train set.

Here she was painting his face like a lion.

There she was helping him blow out all the candles on a birthday cake.

Here she was giving him a teddy bear.

In each picture, the young boy was basking in the glow of her love.

In one of the photographs, Alfred was dressed up in a suit of armour as Richard the Lionheart. Richard I was a heroic king from the twelfth century, who led crusades in far-off lands. Alfred picked up the picture, and studied it.

Lionheart.

That was his mother’s pet name for him.

Tears welled in the boy’s eyes. He always felt unworthy of that name. He felt nothing like a hero. Having been ill all his life, Alfred was used to being an object of pity. Sometimes he even pitied himself.

Tears ran down his cheeks.

He felt helpless to stop his mother being dragged away by the royal guards.

Other important people had mysteriously disappeared in the night over the years.

The prime minister.

The chief of police.

The head of the army.

Even Alfred’s grandmother had suffered the same fate.

Lionheart.

His mother’s voice calling him that name circled round and round in his mind.

Lionheart.

Lionheart had been a mighty warrior. Alfred needed to summon some of his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-ancestor’s spirit, and do something. Anything.

“Lionheart!” he said out loud, and, despite what he had promised his mother, he opened his bedroom door.

Alfred limped down the corridor, steadying himself on the sideboard to catch his breath. Quite a few paces ahead, the royal guards’ cloaks fluttered as they bustled the boy’s mother along. Alfred tried to speed up, but in doing so he stumbled over a rug…

THOD!

…twisting his ankle.

“OUCH!”

With no chance of catching up with them, he thought of Richard the Lionheart, and called out, “I C-C-COMMAND YOU TO ST-ST-STOP!”

Not only was Alfred out of breath, but he was not used to giving orders. As a result, the words came out wonky. Despite Alfred being royal and these being the royal guards, the pair of faceless fiends ignored him. The Queen turned her head and shouted back to her son.

“PLEASE, ALFRED! I DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE THIS.”

There was a look of terror in her eyes. A look the boy had never seen before. His mother had always been a wonder at pretending everything was tickety-boo when it clearly wasn’t. She would always make up stories to cover what was really going on.

The sound of an explosion in the middle of the night was “nothing more than a thunderstorm”. She would then stroke Alfred’s head until he drifted off back to sleep.

After his grandmother had mysteriously gone missing one night from the palace, Mother would make believe that Grammy had written postcards to him. She was the “Old Queen”, his father’s widowed mother, and much loved by the boy. Alfred always called her “Grammy” because when he was little he couldn’t say “Granny”. His mother would read these postcards aloud to him as she put him to bed at night.

It was only when Alfred grew older that he suspected his mother had written all the postcards herself.

When he asked whether they would ever set foot outside Buckingham Palace, the Queen would take her son on an imaginary flight around the world.

“Hold my hand and together let’s fly up, up, up into the air, across London, across the sea, over the pyramids of Egypt, down the Grand Canyon of America, along the Great Wall of China and back to Dear Old Blighty in time for tea.”

In his mind’s eye, the boy would see everything his mother described. The adventures gave him hope that one day he would be able to leave the palace.

Just then Alfred felt something – or someone – SLAM down on his shoulders.

DOOF!

He took a sharp intake of breath, but he was so shocked that no sound came out of his mouth. Two large gloved hands were holding on to him. Alfred turned round. It was another royal guard who had somehow crept up on the boy after he’d stumbled on the rug. Silent, just like the others, he picked the prince up with ease and dragged him back to his bedroom.

“L-L-LET ME GO! I SAID, L-L-LET ME G-G-GO!”

Alfred was powerless to resist. In moments, he was deposited back in his bedroom, and the door shut behind him.

SHTUM!

He lingered behind the door and listened. Outside, the guard waited for a while before the sound of footsteps betrayed his movements. In his head Alfred counted to a hundred. As much as he wanted to race through the numbers, he knew that was a foolish idea. He needed to count until he thought the coast would be clear.

“Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.”

On one hundred, he opened his bedroom door slowly and silently. Then he peeped out and checked that no one was around. The corridor was clear. So he tiptoed down it, before hurrying down the long, sweeping staircase, and across to the grand ballroom. This room once played host to the world’s most extravagant parties. Now it was a ghost of a room. The chandelier was hanging by a thread, the silk curtains drooped on the floor and damp had blotted the walls with dark, ugly patches. Desperately out of breath, the sickly boy stumbled again. This time he fell flat on his face.

BANG!

“OOF!”

Alfred noticed there was some kind of powder on his hands and face. At first, he thought it was dust – the palace was encrusted with the stuff. But it wasn’t dust. This had a smell to it that was different. Chalk!

Scrambling to his feet, he noticed that there were faint chalk markings all across the vast floor. It was as if the boy were standing at the centre of a life-sized chessboard. Someone had tried to rub the lines and markings off, but traces were left behind. Alfred bent down. There were words and symbols, but, despite his love of books, he couldn’t recognise any of them. What’s more, there were burn marks on the wood, and a large discoloured area where something heavy had been moved.

Alfred shivered as he realised something: there were strange goings-on in the palace.

The boy stood up and walked slap bang into someone.

D

O

O

F!

Or, rather, not someone, but something.

THE OCTOBUT.

A robot programmed to do all a butler’s duties, it was meant to make life easier, but it actually made it harder. Much harder. It looked not unlike an octopus, if an octopus were made of metal and trundled across the ground. Crucially, though, it did have eight arms, each one with a special attachment for performing different tasks. Hence the name: “Octo” for “octopus”, and “but” for “butler”, although its name made it sound more like it was an octopus’s bottom.

“Good morning, Mr President!” jabbered the Octobut. It was always getting things wrong.

“Oh, hello, Octobut,” whispered Alfred. “I wasn’t expecting to bump into you. Please can you keep your voice down?”

“Roast chicken,” replied the robot, before announcing, “You will be pleased to know I have boil-washed your underpants.”

With that, the Octobut flung a gigantic pair of unwashed men’s underpants at the prince. They must have belonged to some humongous old man.

WHOOSH!

They landed SLAP BANG in the boy’s face.

“Thank you, Octobut,” whispered Alfred as he removed the still-stinky underpants from his nose.

“Now, are you ready for your game of croquet?”

“No!” hissed the boy.

The robot swung its croquet-mallet arm so hard it bashed the wall.

BANG!

So hard that the arm itself came loose.

It fell to the floor with a CRASH.

With seven arms rather than eight, it was now not so much an Octobut as a Septemabut.*

Outside the ballroom, Alfred could hear the bootsteps of royal guards growing nearer.

STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

The soldiers were just outside the tall wooden double doors that led into the ballroom.

“You go that way!” urged the boy, spinning the Octobut round to face in their direction. “The pope needs his toenails clipping.”

“Very good, Princess!” came the reply.

With all his might, Alfred pushed the Octobut so it trundled off in the direction of the doors.

As the boy tiptoed out of the ballroom, he looked back to see the OCTOBUT CRASH straight into the guards, knocking them to the floor, and accidentally slapping one in the face with its corgi-stroking hand.

SLAP!

SLAP!

SLAP!

The guard grabbed the arm to make the robot stop, and it came off in his hands.

“Oh no!” exclaimed the robot. “I will never stroke a corgi again!”

The poor Octobut was now down to six arms. It should really be renamed the Sexabut but that sounds far too rude.

Ahead of Alfred was the entrance to the throne room.

This was the fortress within the fortress of Buckingham Palace. In a way, it was a panic room, like a giant safe. It had been installed in case of an attack, or, horror upon horror, in case the revolutionaries ever managed to break into the palace itself. The walls of the throne room had been made of metre-thick steel. The only way in or out was through a huge metal door, which opened only with fingerprint recognition. Just two people had access to that room.

The first was the boy’s father, the King.

The second was the King’s chief adviser, the Lord Protector.

The Lord Protector was an elegant figure in his sixties. He was well-spoken and refined, with impeccable manners. A learned man, he spoke with great authority on any subject you might care to mention. Art. Literature. Philosophy. He wore a black shirt buttoned up to the top without a tie, and a smart grey suit. On his lapel he sported a gold pin badge, which, like the flag and the armbands the royal guards wore, depicted a griffin.

The Lord Protector had worked at Buckingham Palace for as long as anyone could remember. He’d started off in the palace library, tending to the thousands of ancient books collected there.

Most of the books were displayed on shelves, but there was a handful kept under lock and key in a cabinet. Only the Lord Protector had the key. Like museum pieces, Alfred was not allowed to take these books up to his room. However, he could look at their covers. One intrigued him the most. It was an ancient red leather-bound book with gold lettering on the front.

The boy knew very little Latin, but he knew enough to translate that. “Libro” was a word you often found in library books. It meant “book”.

So this was The Book of Albion.

Once, when he’d slipped into the library unnoticed, Alfred had seen the Lord Protector studying it. Glancing over the man’s shoulder, he saw there were ornate hand-painted pictures inside. But, before he could make out what they were, the Lord Protector had slammed the book shut, and locked it back in the case. Of course, this only intrigued the boy more.

Over the years, the Lord Protector had gained the trust of the King to the extent that he had become his closest adviser.

As the country slid into ruin with crops failing and no clean water to drink, the Lord Protector introduced EXTREME MEASURES in the King’s name.

 Food and water were rationed.

 There were curfews at night, so people couldn’t go outside.

 Punishments were severe, including execution.

 The government was outlawed.

 The army and the police force were disbanded and replaced by the royal guard.

 The Union Jack was replaced by the flag of the griffin.

Since the catastrophic events that had plunged the kingdom into darkness, the King had relied heavily on the Lord Protector to guide him through this terrifying new world. Over the years, the King became more and more withdrawn, as if he’d disappeared into the back of his mind. No one knew why exactly, but the King, who had once been so full of life, seemed as if he were one of the walking dead. Soon he was ruler only in name. The country was controlled by the Lord Protector.

When Alfred spied his mother being held by the royal guards outside the huge metal door to the throne room, he seized his chance. The lady was making a lot of noise, and struggling to get away, which distracted the two soldiers.

“THIS IS NO WAY TO TREAT YOUR QUEEN! UNHAND ME! DO YOU HEAR? UNHAND ME AT ONCE!”

The boy tiptoed behind them, and when the metal door slid open…

WHOOSH!

…he took a deep

breath,

and

sneaked in.

* “Septem” is the Latin word for “seven”.

The throne room was modern and high-tech compared to the rest of Buckingham Palace, which had not changed for centuries. The walls, floor and ceiling were silver metal. One side was covered with a giant television screen, affording any view of the palace imaginable from a roving flying robot.

In front of the screen was a figure, slumped on the throne.

The King.

The man was only in his fifties, but he looked a good deal older. He had a long, grey beard, and deep, dark circles round his eyes. His appearance had changed rapidly over the years. This once-handsome upright man, full of life and love and laughter, had become an empty shell. Alfred thought that something must have happened to him, something terrible, to make him like this. Father was a completely different man from how he’d been when Alfred was a toddler. It was disturbing to witness such a change in him. As always, the King was wearing his silk pyjamas and dressing gown. He never got dressed or shaved or even washed.

You would never guess he was the King. Once he’d been a great guardian of the British people – now he was seen as their enemy.

Behind the King stood the Lord Protector, his long, thin fingers creeping on to the back of the throne.

“Lord Protector! What in the name of Great Britain do you think you are doing?” demanded the Queen.

The Lord Protector looked past her and the two royal guards – he’d spotted the prince crouching behind them.

“Well, well, well. We have an uninvited guest,” he purred.

“WHAT?” demanded the Queen. She looked round to see her son lurking there.

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

The Queen was furious. “Alfred! I told you to stay in your room!”

“I know, but I couldn’t just let them take you away. Not without a fight.”

The Queen mouthed “I love you” to her son.

The boy mouthed “I love you too” back.

“FATHER!” shouted Alfred. “They are taking Mama away! You have to stop them!”

The King turned to his son, but his eyes had an absence about them, as if there were a deep sadness that no one could reach.

He was staring at Alfred, but seemed to look right through him into space. There appeared to be no thought or feeling within him.

“Your Royal Highness,” began the Lord Protector, “with respect, this is neither the time nor the place for one of such tender years. Please let me call your nanny. She can escort you safely back to your room.”

“NO!” snapped the boy, finding a strength he didn’t know he had.

“No?” The Lord Protector had a way of being perfectly unruffled.

“NO! I demand to know what you are doing with my mother!”

The Queen allowed herself a smile, as if to say, “That’s my boy!”

“Father! Please help us!”

The King held up his hand as if to say, “Enough.” At once, his son noticed nasty cuts on the palm of his father’s hand. He’d seen these before, although, when asked, his father had no memory whatsoever of how they’d got there.

The Lord Protector smirked. He spoke softly and slowly, not meeting the boy’s anger.

“There must be some misunderstanding, Your Royal Highness. I am not doing anything to your mother, the Queen. I am merely a servant of the King.”

The Queen glanced sadly at the King. “My husband is a lost soul and has been for many years, thanks to you. No, this is your doing, Lord Protector!” she stated. “What a title you have! Protector! You protect nothing and nobody other than yourself. You are destroying this kingdom, but you are not going to destroy me!”

The Lord Protector smiled and sighed. “Please forgive me, Your Majesty, but you are quite wrong. This is not my doing. Your arrest is a direct order from your husband, the King.”

Neither the Queen nor the prince could believe what they were hearing.

“Father,” called out the boy.

But the man did not respond.

“FATHER!”

The King’s black eyes came to some semblance of life and fixed on his son.

“Alfred?” he asked. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Father. It’s me, your son, Alfred!”

It had been days since he’d seen his father, and he seemed more distant than ever. “What are you doing, Father? Mother is being taken away by the guards. And the Lord Protector says it is on your direct order!”

The King gathered his thoughts and began. He spoke slowly and softly. “The revolutionaries struck again tonight. St Paul’s Cathedral has been destroyed.”

“A place of worship,” sighed the Lord Protector. “Cruel and callous even by the standards of the revolutionary scum.”

“What on earth has that got to do with me?” demanded the Queen.

The Lord Protector’s mouth twitched into a ghoulish grin, but he said nothing.

The King continued, refusing to look his wife in the eye. “It has everything to do with you.”

“This is nonsense!” she protested. “UTTER NONSENSE!”

The King’s eyes flickered again, and he turned away. He couldn’t bear to look at his wife as he spoke. “For some time, I am sorry to say, you have been under suspicion.”

“Me?” she demanded. The lady was incredulous. “But I am the Queen!”

“You have been spied upon. And the All-Seeing Eye sees everything,” added the Lord Protector.

“Intelligence information has been brought to my attention,” continued the King, still unable to look at her, “that points to you being in direct communication with the revolutionaries.”

The Queen glowed red and began spluttering her innocence. “But… I…”

“You don’t deny it, Your Majesty?” pressed the Lord Protector.

“No, I, er…” the lady stuttered. “Of course, I deny it!”

“Then,” began the Lord Protector, “why did you have this hidden in your bedroom?”

He lifted a cloth to reveal an old-fashioned radio crouched guiltily on a metal table. It had a microphone, a speaker and an aerial, and looked as if it dated back nearly two hundred years to World War Two.

“I have never seen that before in my life!” protested the Queen.

“It was found hidden in a secret compartment in your dressing room.”

The radio crackled into life. A muffled voice on the other end said,

The Queen bowed her head.

Alfred thought he recognised that voice, but he couldn’t be sure. A voice from his dim and distant past, perhaps.

“Regina. The Latin word for Queen,” began the Lord Protector. “Hundreds of coded messages going back and forth over the last few weeks. Here, in the throne room, we intercepted them all. Then tonight, moments after your last message, KABOOM! Another precious building in flames. Sickening. Absolutely sickening.”

Alfred couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it, but he knew from the look on his mother’s face that it was true.

“Mama? How could you? The revolutionaries are evil! They want to kill us all!” he exclaimed.

“I can explain,” she spluttered, turning to the King. “My darling husband, you’ve changed. Something has happened to you, something very wrong, and I don’t know what. Please, I beg you. Don’t do this!”

The Lord Protector turned to the King. “Your Majesty, what would you like me to do with the traitor?”

Alfred was stunned into silence as that dreaded word sank in. TRAITOR.

“Take her to the Tower,” ordered the King.

“NO!” screamed the Queen. “Henry, it’s me, your wife. The mother of your child. I love you. Why are you doing this to me? Or is this really all the work of the Lord Protector? He has you under some kind of spell!”

On the Lord Protector’s nod, the royal guards seized her arms tightly and began dragging her out of the room.

“MAMA!” cried Alfred, and he reached out to grab her hand. But, before he could, a guard shoved him away.

“ARGH!”

The boy fell to the floor.

THUD!

“You are now the kingdom’s only hope,” said the Queen. “Goodbye, Lionheart!”

Alfred watched as the huge metal doors to the throne room slid open…

WHOOSH!

…and closed behind her.

His mother was gone. Perhaps forever.

The Lord Protector paced over to the prince. “There, there,” he said, reaching out to comfort him.

“No. I don’t want you. I want Mama back. PLEASE! I BEG YOU!”

“Your Royal Highness, I realise this is deeply upsetting news, that your mother, the Queen, is a traitor. But I want you to know that I am always here for you. I am, and will forever be, your loyal servant. If you need to talk about your feelings, you know my door is always open, as it has been for your father.”

“Please leave me now,” said the King, still staring off into space. “I need to be alone.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” replied the Lord Protector. He took the prince tightly by the hand. “This must be a difficult time for you more than any of us.”

Still holding the boy tightly by the hand, he made his way over to the metal door.

“Father?” said Alfred, turning towards the King.

“Please, you heard His Majesty – your father needs to be alone,” said the Lord Protector.

“Mama is a good person,” said the boy. “The best. If she did this, there must be a reason.”

“The reason is that there is evil inside her,” interjected the Lord Protector. “The Tower of London is the best place for her. The Executioner should be able to cast the evil out. By hook or by crook.”

Alfred gulped. Whatever “by hook or by crook” meant, it sounded deadly.

No one sent to the Tower of London ever came back.

“Now come on, young prince, a sickly child like you shouldn’t be out of bed at this late hour. You might catch your death,” said the Lord Protector. “You will be King yourself one day. We wouldn’t want anything happening to you, now, would we?”

The huge metal door slid open…

WHOOSH!

…and he led the boy out of the throne room.

Alfred allowed himself one last glimpse of his father. He was searching for a flicker of kindness in his eyes. A shadow of the man he used to be.

But there

was

nothing.

As the Lord Protector led him slowly along the corridor, Alfred could sense something hovering behind.

He looked round to see a giant eye staring back at him. It was the All-Seeing Eye, a huge roving robot camera.

It was powered by thousands of tiny jets, which allowed it to move silently in any direction.

Up.

Down.

Left.

Right.

And everything in between.

The All-Seeing Eye could soar high up into the air above the palace to see for miles around, or glide silently down into the depths of the building.

What it saw through its unblinking eye was beamed right back to that huge television screen in the throne room. There the King, and of course the Lord Protector, could see EVERYTHING.

Nothing and nobody could escape its unblinking stare.

Alfred was drained, not just physically but also emotionally. It took all his strength to climb the long, winding staircase back up to his room at the top of the palace.

When he finally reached his bedroom, the Lord Protector said, “Goodnight, Your Royal Highness. I know how much you love a good book. Would you care for a goodnight story?”

“No,” came the terse reply. “I am not a baby.”

The boy’s eyes were still stinging with tears.

“Forgive me, sir, but you do sometimes cry like one.”

Alfred wanted to thump him. If only he had the strength.

“Just a little joke, sir. There’s no point shedding tears over traitors. After you,” purred the Lord Protector, guiding the young prince through the doorway with a little bow.

Then, with the precision and speed of a close-up magician, he took the key from out of the lock on the inside.

“I think it best I hold on to this, sir, for your own protection, of course,” he said.

“But—!”

“I wish you goodnight. Sweet dreams.”

The Lord Protector patted him on the head. Alfred couldn’t bear the man’s long, thin fingers touching him. He shuddered.

With the All-Seeing Eye still hovering behind, the Lord Protector shut the prince’s bedroom door and locked it.

CLICK!

Alfred staggered to his bed and lay down, burying his head in the pillow.

He wanted to cry until his body turned inside out. Just like a baby. But, right now, tears solved nothing.

Alfred had to do something.

He sat up on the bed. From his window he could see that St Paul’s Cathedral was still ablaze. By morning this historic monument, an icon of London’s skyline, would be little more than charred rubble.

In his heart, the boy knew that his mother couldn’t be behind this terrible attack. It went against everything he knew about her, and he knew her better than anybody. She was kind and loving, the best mother he could ever imagine. The Queen was not capable of such unspeakable horror. What’s more, why would she ever do such a thing?

The revolutionaries were the sworn enemies of the royals. They wanted the royal family dead. It didn’t make sense.

Alfred was determined to find out what was really going on.

The mysterious chalk markings on the floor.

The strange cuts on his father’s hands.

His dearest mama being branded a traitor.

It couldn’t be true.

Alfred was determined to prove his mother’s innocence.

To do that he had to turn detective.

The boy tiptoed back over to his bedroom door. Peeping through the crack under it, he could see a shadow on the floor. The All-Seeing Eye was still hovering outside, keeping watch over him. Even if he could find a way of unlocking the door, royal guards would be here in seconds. His next stop would be the Tower of London.

Instead, Alfred tiptoed over to his window.

As the glory days of Buckingham Palace were long gone, in the prince’s bedroom there was an infestation of woodworm – the larvae of beetles that eat through wood. There were tiny holes in his bedframe, his cupboard and, when he rolled back the stained silk rug that lay in the middle of his room, there were holes in the floorboards too.

The window frames were made of wood, and the wood was rotting. Alfred ran his fingers along the hundreds of little holes in the frame. Cold air was whistling through them. That meant that, even though the glass was bulletproof, there might be a way of taking the whole window out.

Alfred crept over to his wardrobe. He pulled a wire coat hanger off the rail.

CLANK!

Next, he untwisted it…

RINK! DINK! KINK!

…then bent it so he was left with a long metal rod. He made sure the end had a little bend in it, then fed it through one of the tiny holes. Next, he grabbed another coat hanger…

CLANK!

…and did the same to a hole below. Then another two on the other side of the window, top and bottom.

Now, already feeling the worse for wear, Alfred gathered up the ends of all four coat hangers in his hand and pulled. At first nothing happened. No wonder. It was a real struggle for the boy to muster any strength in his thin little arms. Alfred took a deep breath and pulled again. Harder this time. Still nothing. Then he closed his eyes, and yanked the ends of the coat hangers as hard as he possibly could.

SUCCESS!

The whole window came loose. Now a huge slab of glass was coming straight towards him!

WHOOSH!

It was so heavy it could flatten him.

Just in time, he caught it in his hands.

CHONK!

“OOF!”

Immediately Alfred realised he wasn’t strong enough to keep holding it, and so lowered it to the floor as slowly and silently as he could.

THUNK!

A blast of cold air swept into his bedroom.

WHISH!

Alfred hadn’t breathed air from the outside for as long as he could remember.

Next, he peered out. There was a drainpipe on the wall within arm’s reach that he might be able to climb down. However, he couldn’t just leave the window frame lying there. A missing window on the side of Buckingham Palace would arouse suspicion. So, he righted it, swapped the coat hangers to the other side, and stepped out on to the slippery windowsill.

Suddenly, it dawned on Alfred that it was an awfully long way down from the top of the palace to the bottom. If he lost his grip, he’d be nothing more than human jam.*

Next, using his weight as a lever, he pulled the window back into place from the outside.

SHTONK!

Then, summoning all his strength, Alfred shimmied over to the drainpipe.

Avoiding the royal guard’s searchlights that raked the walls day and night looking for intruders, the boy slid over to the side.

Right next to his room was the King’s bedroom. He and the Queen had had separate bedrooms for as long as Alfred could remember.

The room was vast, with a huge four-poster bed, two sofas arranged around a coffee table and a marble fireplace. From outside the window, Alfred saw his father sitting alone on the end of his bed. The man stared straight ahead. At first Alfred was worried that his father had glimpsed him. But no. The man was staring into space.

The King rubbed the palms of his hands. That is where those strange cuts were.

Just then, the door to the King’s bedroom opened.

CLICK!

It was the Lord Protector. Alfred ducked out of view.

Then, after a few moments, the boy lifted his head so he could peer through the window again.

He could see the Lord Protector leading his father off somewhere. But where?

As the King’s bedroom door closed behind them, Alfred began his

slow

descent

down

the

drainpipe.

The next window was the library. This was one of the largest rooms in the palace, stocked from top to bottom with antique books, all of them extraordinary. Some even unique.

Alfred was surprised NOT to see the Lord Protector in the library. He was often to be found there alone, reading late into the night. The library was where the man had begun his career at Buckingham Palace, all those years ago when he was just a humble librarian. This was decades before he became Lord Protector.

There was a narrow gap in the curtains, and Alfred manoeuvred himself closer to the glass, so he could peek through.

The lights were out, and the room was dark.

But the light of a candle flickered in the gloom.

There was a lone figure with their back to the window. Who were they? And what were they doing?

It was hard to make out. Alfred kept very still and watched.

Someone was trying to force open the cabinet that held the most special books. Frantically, though. As if their life depended on it.

Alfred pressed his face right up against the window to get a better look, but as he did so he lost his footing for a moment, and his head hit the glass.

THUNK!

Immediately, the candle was blown out, and the library was plunged into darkness.

Alfred moved out of sight of the window.

Just then a searchlight came towards him.

Were the royal guards going to shoot him from the ground?

Alfred stayed as still as the stone gargoyle right next to him on the wall of the palace as the searchlight passed over him. The prince didn’t even dare take a breath.

Then he heard the sound of the window opening.

SHUNT!

Just as he tried to hurry back up the drainpipe, a hand reached out of the window, and yanked him inside.

“ARGH!” he screamed.

* Human jam is considered to be the most revolting of all the jams. Other unpopular varieties include:

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